Warming by the Devil's Fire (Charles Burnett, 2003) (Patreon)

Martin Scorsese's PBS series "The Blues" featured seven segments, directed by seven different directors. And in what can charitably be called an odd choice, Burnett was the only Black person among them. Reviews of the series consistently indicate that two of the entries, Burnett's and Wim Wenders', were the most unconventional in approach. Having only seen the Burnett film, I cannot say for sure.

But Burnett's approach would seem to be something that he and he alone could attempt. While Warming by the Devil's Fire provides a solid study of the development of the Delta blues, Burnett has organized the film around an extensive fictional framework that is deeply personal. We discover the geography of the blues -- the juke joints, the Tremé in New Orleans, and the backroads of rural Mississippi -- by following a self-professed blues expert and his visiting nephew. The first person narration (by Carl Lumbly) suggests that we are watching a fictionalized version of Burnett's own childhood.

Although this may be mythologized autobiography, Burnett's method brings the blues, and Southern Black culture more generally, into the present tense. The young kid, Junior (Nathaniel Lee, Jr.), is picked up from the train station by his Uncle Buddy (Tommy Redmond Hicks), who presents himself as the black sheep and hellraiser of the family. Junior's mother sent her son to interface with a different uncle (Jay Unger) who is a preacher, and this sets up the basic dialectic through which Burnett asks us to consider the Delta blues. Starting the film with photos and film of slaves in chains, and men and women lynched from bridges, Burnett lays it all on the line. Black people needed some form of meaning that might assuage the horror of their lives, and the two dominant options were the blues and Christianity. Reminding us that the devout considered the blues "the devil's music," Warming tries to articulate how these two seemingly opposed forces, blues music and the church, have structured Black life ever since.

To fully flesh out this thesis would be a tall order. As we know, Burnett's stock in trade as a film artist is being able to make work that is both personal and professional, under very limiting circumstances. Warming doesn't come together as well as it probably could have, had Burnett commanded an unlimited budget and an extended production process. But what the film does accomplish is a significant juxtaposition. Between archival sequences of the great masters of the Delta blues (Willie Dixon, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters, Ma Rainey, Dinah Washington, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Lightnin' Hopkins, and many others), Burnett introduces us to various contemporary residents of New Orleans and Vicksburg, MS. These individuals, some fictional and others playing themselves, make it clear that the blues is still a vital artform and an all-pervasive worldview. In other words, Burnett's film examines a living culture by showing its antecedents. This brings the music to life, showing how the blues, like any great cultural achievement, resonates far beyond its moment of origin.